During the 11 years that Margaret Albus lived with Alzheimer's disease, the worst moment came in the middle of one night, when she called out to her daughter, panic-stricken: "I just want to know who I am."

"I am almost crying now," said Becky Albus, a 53-year-old optician who was looking after her elderly parents that weekend. "I would have done anything not to let her be scared."

Margaret Albus died on Dec. 31, 2009, at the age of 86. But she had mentally slipped away a decade before. She had seven children.

"This is a terrible disease and to have a parent or anyone in the family [with Alzheimer's] leaves an indelible mark," he said. "The loss of identity and loss of personality -- we have an organ called the brain that is who we are."

The disease affects so many people that when the study was announced 10 years ago, the institute got 600 phone calls in the first 24 hours.

"We never had to recruit, that's how much interest there was in the study," he said. "And people have traveled large distances to be a part of it."

Now, the study includes 1,500 participants with a mean age of 53, including all seven of the Albus siblings. The hardest part has been finding those who don't have a family history -- and a compelling reason to participate -- for a comparison group, according to Sager.

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Risk factors for the disease include increasing age and abnormalities in the apolipoprotein E gene (APOE), which is on chromosome 19 and has three different alleles, or alternative purposed, like those for eye and hair color.

One -- the e4 allele -- is associated with increased risk. Not all who have this gene will go on to get the disease, but they are more susceptible.

APOE was first recognized for its importance in lipoprotein metabolism and cardiovascular disease, but has more recently been studied for its role in the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

About 44 percent of the study participants have APOE abnormalities. They have more than double the risk of the general population, 15 to 20 percent of whom have that gene sequencing.

"The disease is more prevalent in women because they live longer," said Sager.